76 people are sick and one person is dead in a drug-resistant salmonella outbreak linked to ground turkey, but the USDA still hasn’t publicly announced the company responsible for the outbreak, or even identified the state where the fatality occurred.

University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan said the government’s handling of the outbreak raises ethical questions about why the public wasn’t warned sooner.

“You’ve got to protect the public health,” Caplan said. "That’s their first and primary value – not industry, not any other goal. They have to warn as quickly as they think there’s reasonable evidence for concern."

You shouldn’t need a bioethicist to agree with Caplan. But the USDA’s first priority is to protect agribusiness, not consumers.

Seems like the only sensible response for American omnivores is to avoid all ground turkey until the USDA coughs up some details. Link.